


In the hours after midnight

by aperfectsong



Category: How I Met Your Mother
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-13
Updated: 2013-01-12
Packaged: 2017-11-25 06:57:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/636299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aperfectsong/pseuds/aperfectsong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two companion pieces post Tick, Tick, Tick: 1. Barney Stinson didn't have the gift of foresight to see that terrible night backwards. 2. Robin Scherbatsky left McLaren's alone at a quarter to one, still wishing she could turn back the clock to a day and a half ago and do everything in the intervening hours differently.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 12:22am

Barney Stinson didn't have the gift of foresight to see that terrible night backwards, through the future lens labeled bad timing, but rather saw it through the present one, which was just a little bit faulty and one-sided. He stood in front of Ted's dumpster with the bag of rose petals. There were no TVs to smash, and to his surprise, he didn't even feel the need to smash one this time. Instead, he stood there, swallowing the lump in his throat, trying to find a way to blame himself for this, to make this not her fault.

He kept settling on the question she asked him: _I'm such a mess. Why do you even like me?_ Without Barney understanding why, it brought to mind the image of a child sitting in a mess of oil paints, the reds running into the greens, the blues smeared on the child's face, yellows covering her smock, which was already discolored with old, crusty, dry paint. _Why do you even like me?_ He was a kid, too, sitting next to her, in an equally messy smock, which was all tattered and hardened at the edges with years of dried paint like hers. He too, was also covered in fresh paint: brown in his hair, black defiling his white gym shoes, red covering both his child-sized hands. Because you're almost as messed up as I am.

He realized now that was probably the wrong answer. He should have realized it then, but time was moving so fast through those moments they spent alone together he barely had time to think. Truthfully, though, what could he have possibly said? _You are the only person who makes me want to be better than I am? You're beautiful and intelligent and you used to be a Canadian pop star? I've known you for seven years and sometimes, it seems you are so integrated into who I am, I can't separate myself from you? Once, I dreamt of you as an old woman and me as an old man and I still woke up wanting you?_

He lets out a long breath and feels it again: the hollow aching in his rib cage, the strangled air trapped in his throat, the cloud behind his eyes, and his throbbing head, which replayed that shake of her head while searching for something in her eyes to explain it. To explain _this_. He tried to get angry, tried to blame her, tried to make this _her_ fault.

But he just kept hearing her voice: _I'm such a mess. I'm a terrible person. I'm such a mess. I'm such a mess._

And a ghost of that old Barney passed through him, the one who would interpret these feelings of frustration and rejection as anger, and rage in grief against them. But in the same moment, he realized that he was no longer that man, no longer that paint-specked boy. And it was a good feeling, on top of everything else; a fog light breaking through the dim.

He could not blame her for this. She was still that little girl covered in paint, rubbing and rubbing to wipe it clean, turning her skin pink with the friction, her eyes filled with hopeless tears.

And he was standing there in his spotless suit, looking on and waiting.


	2. 1:52am

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robin Scherbatsky left McLaren's alone at a quarter to one, still wishing she could turn back the clock to a day and a half ago and do everything in the intervening hours differently.

Robin Scherbatsky left McLaren's alone at a quarter to one, still wishing she could turn back the clock to a day and a half ago and do everything in the intervening hours differently.

But as it was, since that kiss in the cab, with each tick of the second hand, she had slowly begun shutting down.

It began with a single thought: _This is a mistake_ , followed by an inability to stop herself, to stop Barney, to do anything but let it happen as the night unfolded around them. As the bed grew warm and they fell into old, familiar rhythms, she felt disconnected from her body. It moved on autopilot while her mind told her _Stop, This is wrong, What are you doing?_ Only she couldn't stop, couldn't control her body; she couldn't even bring herself to enjoy this closeness between them. There was something in this that was poison. And when it was over and she sat, clutching the blanket to her chest without speaking, listening to the sound of Barney sigh contentedly at her side, she had to choke back a sob. The guilt of what they had done bore down on her, knocked the air from her lungs. And he didn't see it.

Maybe even Kevin was wrong about her. Maybe there was something deep down that was truly broken inside her. Something he missed during the therapy sessions.

And maybe that was why Barney's words got to her. Really got to her, lodged themselves in her chest, restricted her breathing:

_Because you're almost as messed up as I am._

_You're almost as messed up as I am._

That phrase scared her more than Kevin's _I love you_ had, more than anything anyone had ever said to her. It contained within it all the fears she had ever dared to consider about herself: that she would never be good enough, that there was something seriously wrong with her, that she was and would forever be completely undeserving of love.

She lay down on her bed, still in her dress and shoes, and stretched her arms out around her. She didn't bother to turn the light on, or close the curtain in front of her window. She wanted to open the window and have a cigarette, but wouldn't even allow herself that one small pleasure in the wake of everything.

Kevin had offered her a way out. No questions asked. Just forgiveness she didn't deserve and that promise, if it was a promise, of showing her how to see herself. It was the only way.

That was what she told herself now as tears blurred her vision, as the pictures and books around her room took on new half-lives, existing for some other Robin she had lost somewhere. She turned over onto her stomach and pressed her face into the pillow and cried in a way she hadn't for a long time: the long, rattling breaths, the uncontrollable shaking, the endless sobs that remind her of being very small. She gave herself to it completely for probably a few minutes, but which felt much longer: lifetimes, eons. She expected almost to come out on the other side changed, or for the feelings of panic to have lessened. But nothing in her life had ever been neat or easy, and every step she had taken still seemed some fatal wrong turn.

She stretched her arms underneath her pillow, reaching for the cold space, for numbness, for another life. Something brushed against her finger. She captured it in her hand and pulled it out slowly, thinking it might be a dead moth, or some other insect burnt up flying towards the light.

When she opened her fist, it wasn't the body of some unfortunate insect that she found. Lying there, in the center of her palm was single petal of a red rose. It wasn't wilted or torn or damaged, just slightly misshapen, but otherwise, to her surprise, still whole.


End file.
